This is the story of Jackie Chan’s worst accident, which could have cost him his life

Jackie Chan is one of the world’s most famous and popular action movie actors. His main trademark and what has really set him apart from the rest is his eagerness to do his stunts rather than use stuntmen throughout his filmography. As a result, he has suffered all kinds of terrible accidents and injuries throughout his long career, but the most dangerous of all was the one he suffered while filming ‘Armour of God’ (1986). Chan missed a jump into a tree branch and fell head-first onto a rock from a great height, suffering a serious skull fracture that could have cost him his life.

This was the accident that could have cost Jackie Chan his life during the filming of ‘Armor of God’

‘Armour of God’ was a Jackie Chan movie released in 1986, in which he played Jackie, a musician who took a strange turn in his life by becoming an Indiana Jones-like treasure hunter. As part of the opening sequence, Chan jumped from a wall onto a tree branch, but the branch broke, causing the actor to fall from a height of five meters and land headfirst on a rock, fracturing his skull and a fragment of his skull piercing his brain.

The actor was rushed to the hospital, and luckily his life was saved by emergency surgery. Since then, Chan has a hole in his skull, which is sealed with a plastic prosthesis, and has partially lost the hearing in his right ear. The actual shot in which Jackie Chan almost had a fateful outcome was preserved in the movie’s credits and can be seen from minute 2:06 of this video.

Worst of all, this accident could have been avoided altogether, because the first take went well, but it was the actor himself who, convinced that it could be done better, decided to repeat it. Jackie Chan was out of luck.

Of course, it would not be the last time that this artist would have an accident while shooting a movie, but it was the most serious of all. As a curiosity: many of the actor’s films include shots in the credits where you can see these mistakes and accidents, as in this ‘Armor of God’ (1986) or ‘Police Story 2′ (1988). In the latter case, you can see him being hit in one eye, burning, going through glass...

Jackie Chan’s Guinness World Records for Stunts

Jackie Chan holds two Guinness World Records: the most credits in a single movie by a single person (15 for 2012′s ‘CZ12′) and the most stunts by a single living actor. Chan received the two diplomas at the premiere of ‘CZ12′ and considered them a recognition of his life’s work.

This Hong Kong-born actor has starred in more than a hundred films during his career, and a defining characteristic of his career has been the fact that he prefers not to use stuntmen and stuntwomen for stunts, but to do them himself. This has earned him many accolades, as well as accidents that have left him with injuries and fractures all over his body.

Over time, Chan has even joked that no insurance company wants to work with him because of the danger of these scenes and the high possibility of getting hurt, as has happened to him on countless occasions.